About

Since founding their first school in 1548, the Jesuits have always aimed to provide an education that forms students as whole persons who will change the world for the better.
As one of the University’s three Centers of Distinction, the Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education promotes and enhances that distinctively Jesuit, Catholic tradition of education at Santa Clara, through a range of signature programs.

Vision Statement

The Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education will be recognized throughout Silicon Valley as providing leadership for the integration of faith, justice, and the intellectual life.

Mission Statement

The Ignatian Center promotes and enhances the distinctively Jesuit, Catholic tradition of education at Santa Clara University, with a view to serving students, faculty, staff, and through them the larger community, both local and global.

Signature Programs

The Ignatian Center bridges the gap between the classroom and the community, creating spaces for students to learn from their time with community partners and supporting faculty in the integration of this community experience into the classroom learning.

The SCU Thriving Neighbors Initiative will actively promote strategic ties between Santa Clara University and the Greater Washington Community of San Jose in order to advance prosperity and education of both SCU students and neighborhood students as whole persons in whole communities.

Bannan Institutes are biennial thematic programs, spanning academic, public, and pastoral offerings to further an ethic of dialogue around issues of contemporary religious, cultural, and social significance. Supported through the generosity of the Bannan family endowment, Bannan Institute offerings further the Jesuit, Catholic vocation of the University engaging a pluralistic society in the 21st century.

The Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education provides faculty, staff, students, board members, and other close partners, multiple ways of encountering the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, be that off-campus retreats, on-campus offerings, or web-based resources. The Center also offers a range of events that correspond to the needs and commitments of individuals, such as lectures and workshops on spiritual practices of various faith traditions.

The Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education sponsors experiences in which students, faculty, staff, and alumni immerse themselves into communities that have little access to wealth, power, and privilege—locally, domestically, and abroad.